[Correspondence] Factors that can make overall survival unreliable as a clinical trial outcome

Samual X Stevens and colleagues advocate overall survival as the decisive trial endpoint.1 The authors overstate their case in saying that, “Oncology literature abounds with examples where reliance on putative surrogate endpoints has resulted in increased deaths.” They note that immunotherapy decreased myeloma overall survival, but the implication that surrogate endpoints suggested immunotherapy benefit was incorrect. Neither response rates nor…